In case you missed our intro email, Culture HOR is a biweekly peak into the future. We’re your one stop shop for the latest on the blockchain, making the technology of tomorrow accessible for you today.
And, as of today, our referral program is live, meaning there’s a $250 Visa gift card with your name on it — if your name is the one on the unique link that refers the most new subscribers by the end of the month.
Scroll to the end of the email for your link, and get it out to anyone you know who’d want to be the first to the new mainstream, to help reboot the culture, or to read everything important on the Internet, in one email, twice a week.
Chad & El Prof
Who wouldn’t wanna buy a piece of Biebs?
When I was browning out in the Pike backyard to the soothing untz! untz! untz! untz! of late stage EDM while 3LAU funneled Natty Lite down his gullet and broke the airhorn on his soundboard, he didn’t exactly strike me as a music industry pioneer. But the same undercut-sporting DJ who broke NFT records before the acronym had even entered my eardrums is now officially just that.
Late last month, 3LAU announced the launch of Royal. Royal is a crypto platform where listeners can buy NFTs to support artists, in turn owning a share of the artist’s cashflow. In other words, he stole our goddamn idea.
For months, we’ve been beating this drum to anyone who will listen, which now includes y’all. NFTs are more than just digital trading cards. They are the future of ownership rights for artists everywhere, from writers to comedians. And, if you’re a creative who believes in fair compensation for your work, the time to get in is now.
Royal isn’t the only music-related utilization of the blockchain. BitClout, the so-called Crypto Social Network, is a similar project selling tokens for public figures like Ariana Grande and Elon Musk. (Theory being, if their clout goes up, their token will too.) We’ve seen high profile NFT projects from Vic Mensa and The Weeknd. And one musician is even selling the rights to deepfake her voice for a 50/50 profit share.
When you sell or buy an NFT on the blockchain, there is a permanent, irrefutable record of you doing so. The implications for reclaiming and monetizing your work are endless, and they’re our specialty. If you have a creative project in any medium you want to take into the future, we got you. Respond to this email and we’ll be in touch.
Proof the simulation is glitching.
Our Stud of the Week is Tom Fry’s Anguish (above) which sold for .9eth yesterday. Turns out snapping a picture of an already excellent painting and editing it into 60+ unique animation frames is a surefire recipe for a gallery-ready GIF of a glitching matrix worthy of far more than the ~$3000 USD it sold for.
If you’re one of 10 people watching my video series, On OpenSeas with el Prof, you know Basquiat rip offs are my bread and butter. The balance of minimalism and busyness reminds me of the dizzying fractals on the cathartic tail end of a bad trip. And I love the as-of-yet underutilized practice of bringing static paintings to life online. It adds a layer of emotion and is one of the cooler prospects of the NFT art landscape.
However, as always on OpenSea’s art category, the standouts are the exception to the rule, and this week was no different, with some astonishingly awful sales, per usual.
The top 2 came from the same collective, Art Blocks Playground, and, in fact, the same collection, SnowFro’s Chromie Squiggle. No offense, but doesn’t spending 1342.5eth (over $4m US goddamn D) on two randomly generated children’s scribble seem like irrefutable proof the simulation is malfunctioning?
Finally, Dud of the Week number 3 is called Nerd Diagram Porn #1 and went for 15eth. It is a reference to both a meme and a technology presentation on upgrading a well known blockchain network.
I gag at the thought of how that capital could be better deployed to solve the world’s problems, but I’m also a free-market kind of guy. I’d rather set cash on fire and do my part to curb inflation than purchase trinkets like this. If you have millions to blow, I don’t know — at least blow it on me?
RIP to our attention span.
The American short story, our national attention span, and more than a few metaphorical horses have by now been beaten past death. Still, if you’ve gotten this far in an email newsletter (hello 2003) maybe you’d like to play a micro-sized part in keeping our profession alive.
Here are five excellent pieces of writing from the past few days worth the 30 second read.
SLOPPY SECONDS
Practice Internet mindfulness by not replying to these objective lists of subjective things.
DAOs: a middle finger to mega corporations, explained.
A look at the coolest un-digital art exhibit out there.
The intersection between TikTok users and true crime fans is getting messy.
A fake rock star is beefing with a real one.
The most viable path to stardom of the decade remains make a viral Nicki Minaj stan Twitter account.
